1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic conversation system and a conversation scenario editing device, and particularly to an automatic conversation system that is capable of automatically outputting a reply in response to an utterance by a user to establish a conversation with the user, and a conversation scenario editing device that generates and edits a conversation scenario to be used in the automatic conversation system.
2. Related Background of the Invention
Conventionally, an automatic conversation device has been proposed which receives a user's utterance and then outputs a reply to the utterance (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-366190: Patent Document 1). It is generally done in such a conventional automatic conversation device that a database that stores pairs of user's utterances and replies thereto is searched to output a reply to a user's utterance.
However, according to the above conventional method by which a reply to a user's utterance will be output based on a one-on-one relationship, it is difficult by an automatic conversation device to establish a natural conversation about a certain topic with a user and to provide a preliminarily prepared story content (e.g., explanations of an institution fabric, emergency medical treatments) to a user step by step.
It has been proposed as a technology for establishing a natural conversation to use a scenario that provides conversation contents along with progress of a preliminarily prepared conversation while replying to user's utterances. However, it was impossible to create a language model from the scenario without a Knowledge Base engineer with expertise. In most cases, since the conversation engine is integrated with Knowledge Base, even a KB creator cannot comprehend an entire “scenario”.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an automatic conversation system and a conversation scenario editing device that enable a non-expert without expertise to generate a language model based on a scenario that provides, replying to user's utterances, conversation contents along with progress of a preliminarily prepared conversation to provide a more adequate conversation based on a precise speech recognition.